Nonprofit groups address fundraising, volunteer challenges in wake of Helene

October is usually a key fundraising month for Waynesville’s Shelton House. In addition to the donations it gets from visiting tourists, the nonprofit museum draws hundreds of people to its annual Historic Home Tour.

This year’s tour, set for Oct. 13, was to include stops at the Massie House, the Hannah-Graham-Morgan House, the Yellow House and the Stone House. But just days before the $50 tickets were to go on sale, Tropical Storm Helene hit Western North Carolina.

“We ended up postponing the tour because we just thought it would be incredibly disrespectful to ask people to buy tickets,” says Morgan Winstead, museum director. “But that does mean that one of our bigger fundraising events for this year got canceled until next year, so that was kind of difficult.”

While the 1875 Shelton House, which is home to the Museum of North Carolina Handicrafts, didn’t suffer any damage from Helene, it was forced to close for several weeks, cutting off another source of donations. Fortunately, Winstead says, most of the museum’s annual donors have continued to contribute.

The Shelton House is just one of many local nonprofits facing challenges as money and volunteer hours pour into groups with a more direct role in storm recovery efforts. These groups are trying to address the issue in creative ways, including reaching out to donors and volunteers outside WNC for help.

Mostly, though, they are making the case that they have a key role to play in the post-Helene world.

“We don’t want to sell ourselves short as an organization because we do offer a unique space for healing for girls,” says Nicole Lowery, executive director of Girls on the Run WNC. “We aren’t a critical immediate response organization, but we are part of the long-term healing response for the area.”

Tools to cope

Girls on the Run WNC is an out-of-school program that serves girls in third through eighth grades throughout the region.

“We address things like how to have healthy friendships, how to tap into what makes us unique and makes us special and how to resolve conflict in a healthy way,” Lowery says. “And then we wrap all of that around running, so there’s an emotional learning aspect of it and a physical development aspect of it.”

At the end of each season, the participating girls run a 5K.

The program was put on hold while schools were out, but it has returned with 217 participants on 16 teams (down from 19 when the storm hit), mostly based at local elementary and middle schools. The 5K has been rescheduled for Sunday, Dec. 15, at Tanger Asheville outlet mall.

The organization’s leaders know local donors may be tapped out right now, so they reached out to former volunteer coaches and other supporters who have moved out of the region. And they are exploring ways to expand the base of volunteer coaches.

“We rely really heavily on teacher/coaches, but their workload has been increasing anyway, and now their capacity has had another hit,” Lowery says. “We may have to look at some other outreach ideas, such as working more with our junior coach program, which allows high school students to join an adult coach to help coach one of the teams.”

Ultimately, she believes, donors and volunteers will continue to support Girls on the Run because its work is more important than ever.

“The lessons we teach are important in normal development and normal times for girls,” she explains. “But in times like these, it gives them extra tools to get through some of the challenges that something like a natural disaster can present.”

Addressing the trauma

Flat Rock Playhouse was on track to have a “banner year” in 2024 with attendance of more than 60,000 and a run of Cats scheduled to start Oct. 25, says Jim Brewer, director of development for the nonprofit theater.

“When the storm hit, we were just preparing to bring the Cats cast and crew onto the campus to begin rehearsal,” Brewer explains. “But with everything that happened those next two weeks [after the storm], they didn’t have time to rehearse, and we didn’t have time to create the sets, so we had to cancel.”

Most of the people who had bought tickets to the show donated them back to the playhouse, helping alleviate the financial hit. And community members, including some first-time donors, stepped up to support the theater. “A note card from a first-time donor said: ‘Everybody’s been through a rough time, but I want to give this to you because you support and edify all of us.'”

Even with no shows in October, the playhouse stayed active in the community, offering its free Rock Out concert series at schools and community venues around Henderson County and surrounding areas. Additionally, staff members did in-class readings for more than 700 county students.

“The emotional and mental trauma that everybody has experienced has not even been addressed yet,” Brewer says. “And the arts, especially theater, offer ways for people to express and give voice to that trauma, to get rid of those pent-up emotions, to work through the anxiety.”

Some of the theater’s regular donors have agreed to help fund the concert series, Brewer says.

The playhouse had its first post-Helene production, Mozart to Pop Chart: Volume 3 — The History of Rock and Roll, in mid-November and will begin its popular annual A Flat Rock Playhouse Christmas on Friday, Nov. 29. Most of its volunteer ushers have returned for the shows.

“I believe we’re going to be all right,” Brewer says. “We will adapt. We are already planning the 2025 season.”

Literacy

Literacy Together is an Asheville nonprofit that matches volunteer tutors with students in three programs: youth literacy, adult literacy and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL).

All the students in the programs are from Buncombe County, but some of the ESOL teachers are from other places and work with students over Zoom. Amanda Wrublewski, executive director of the organization, thinks that may provide a model for finding volunteers for the other programs at a time when local volunteers may be harder to find.

The program serves about 500 people in its core programs and needs about the same number of volunteers because all lessons are one-on-one.

“I’ve been checking in with the people who are in our program, whether they’re volunteers or supporters,” she says. “A lot of them have experienced some kind of loss, whether it’s home damage or job loss. These are such unprecedented times, so I’m not exactly sure how that will play out in the long haul.”

The good news, she says, is that many of the volunteers already are back in the program, and most have indicated they want to continue tutoring.

Wrublewski points out that her organization’s mission will be vital in the long-term efforts to recover from the tropical storm.

“If you’re a young person in the school system who’s now dealing with the trauma of Helene, coupled with reduction of learning time due to school closures, and you were already reading below grade level, then that impact is going to be long lasting,” she says.

With that in mind, Literacy Together organized a book drive to provide reading material to children who were out of school for several weeks. The group collected thousands of books that it distributed to different community partners and schools, Wrublewski says.

In addition to the book drive, the nonprofit took on new responsibilities like helping students fill out Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) applications and make use of other resources. “It might be hard for people with low literacy skills, or for people who don’t speak English, to even know how to access and navigate these things,” she says.

Wrublewski has been impressed with the generosity displayed by people in the community in the aftermath of Helene and hopes it will continue.

“I’m so thankful for what they’ve done, and I’m hoping that they can see we still need them to show up for our communities because the work doesn’t stop now,” she says. “Organizations like mine are in this for the long haul. I’m feeling a strong sense of connection and compassion between people that I don’t know that I felt to this level before. That does make me hopeful that we’ll grow our volunteer base moving forward.”